(with the solitary exception of Louis Philippe), he is still
the only king of France whose mind was ever prepared for the
duties of that high station by any course of severe and
systematic study. Before he ascended the throne of his
ancestors he had profoundly meditated the great Italian
authors, and the institutions and maxims of the Italian
republics. From those lessons he had derived a low esteem of
his fellowmen, and especially of those among them upon whom
wealth, and rank, and power had descended as an hereditary
birthright. ... He clearly understood, and pursued with
inflexible steadfastness of purpose the elevation of his
country and the grandeur of his own royal house and lineage;
but he pursued them with a torpid imagination, a cold heart,
and a ruthless will. He regarded mankind as a physiologist
contemplates the living subjects of his science, or as a
chess-player surveys the pieces on his board. ... It has been
said of Louis XI., that the appearance of the men of the
Revolution of 1789 first made him intelligible. ... Louis was
the first of the terrible Ideologists of France--of that class
of men who, to enthrone an idolized idea, will offer whole
hecatombs of human sacrifices at the shrine of their idol. The
Idea of Louis was that of levelling all powers in the state,
in order that the administration of the affairs, the
possession of the wealth, and the enjoyment of the honours of
his kingdom might be grasped by himself and his successors as
their solitary and unrivalled dominion. ... Before his
accession to the throne, all the great fiefs into which France
had been divided under the earlier Capetian kings had, with
the exception of Bretagne, been either annexed to the royal
domain, or reduced to a state of dependence on the crown. But,
under the name of Apanages, these ancient divisions of the
kingdom into separate principalities had reappeared. The
territorial feudalism of the Middle Ages seemed to be reviving
in the persons of the younger branches of the royal house. The
Dukes of Burgundy had thus become the rulers of a state [see
BURGUNDY: A. D. 1467] which, under the government of more
politic princes, might readily, in fulfillment of their
desires, have attained the rank of an independent kingdom. The
Duke of Bretagne, still asserting the peculiar privileges of
his duchy, was rather an ally than a subject of the king of
France. Charles, Duke of Berri, the brother of Louis, aspired
to the possession of the same advantages. And these three
great territorial potentates, in alliance with the Duc de
Bourbon and the Comte de St. Pol, the brothers-in-law of Louis
and of his queen, united together to form that confederacy
against him to which they gave the very inappropriate title of
La Ligue du Bien Public. It was, however, a title which
recognized the growing strength of the Tiers Étât, and of that
public opinion to which the Tiers Étât at once gave utterance
and imparted authority. Selfish ambition was thus compelled to
assume the mask of patriotism. The princes veiled their
insatiable appetite for their own personal advantages under
the popular and plausible demands of administrative
reforms--of the reduction of imposts--of the government of
the people by their representatives--and, consequently, of the
convocation of the States-General. To these pretensions Louis
was unable to make any effectual resistance." An indecisive
but bloody battle was fought at Montlehery, near Paris (July
16, 1465), from which both armies retreated with every
appearance of defeat. The capital was besieged ineffectually
for some weeks by the League; then the king yielded, or seemed
to do so, and the Treaty of Conflans was signed. "He assented,
in terms at least, to all the demands of his antagonists. He
granted to the Duke of Berri the duchy of Normandy as an
apanage transmissible in perpetuity to his male heirs. ... The
confederates then laid down their arms. The wily monarch bided
his time. He had bestowed on them advantages which he well
knew would destroy their popularity and so subvert the basis
of their power, and which he also knew the state of public
opinion would not allow them to retain. To wrest those
advantages from their hands, it was only necessary to comply
with their last stipulation, and to convene the
States-General. They met accordingly, at Tours, on the 6th of
April, 1468." As Louis had anticipated--or, rather, as he had
planned--the States-General cancelled the grant of Normandy to
the Duke of Berri (which the king had been able already to
recover possession of, owing to quarrels between the dukes of
Berri and Brittany) and, generally, took away from the princes
of the League nearly all that they had extorted in the Treaty
of Conflans. On the express invitation of the king they
appointed a commission to reform abuses in the
government--which commission "attempted little and effected
nothing"--and, then, having assisted the cunning king to
overcome his threatening nobles, the States-General were
dissolved, to meet no more while Louis XI. occupied the
throne. In a desperate situation he had used the dangerous
weapon against his enemies with effect; he was too prudent to
draw it from the sheath a second time.
_Sir J. Stephen,
Lectures on the History of France,
lecture 11._
"The career of Louis XI. presents a curious problem. How could
a ruler whose morality fell below that of Jonathan Wild yet
achieve some of the greatest permanent results of patriotic
statesmanship, and be esteemed not only by himself but by so
calm an observer as Commines the model of kingly virtue? As to
Louis's moral character and principles, or want of principle,
not a doubt can be entertained. To say he committed the acts
of a villain is to fall far short of the truth. ... He
possessed a kind of religious belief, but it was a species of
religion which a respectable heathen would have scorned. He
attempted to bribe heaven, or rather the saints, just as he
attempted to win over his Swiss allies--that is, by gifts of
money. ... Yet this man, who was daunted by no cruelty, and
who could be bound by no oath save one, did work which all
statesmen must admire, and which French patriots must
fervently approve.
{1182}
He was the creator of modern France. When he came to the
throne it seemed more than likely that an utterly selfish and
treacherous nobility would tear the country in pieces. The
English still threatened to repeat the horrors of their
invasions. The House of Burgundy overbalanced the power of the
crown, and stimulated lawlessness throughout the whole
country. The peasantry were miserably oppressed, and the
middle classes could not prosper for want of that rule of law
which is the first requisite for civilization. When Louis
died, the existence of France and the power of the French
crown was secured: 'He had extended the frontiers of his
kingdom; Picardy, Provence, Burgundy, Anjou, Maine, Roussillon
had been compelled to acknowledge the immediate authority of
the crown.' He had crushed the feudal oligarchy; he had seen
his most dangerous enemy destroyed by the resistance of the
Swiss; he had baffled the attempt to construct a state which
would have imperilled the national existence of France; he had
put an end to all risk of English invasion; and he left France
the most powerful country in Europe. Her internal government
was no doubt oppressive, but, at any rate, it secured the rule
of law; and his schemes for her benefit were still unfinished.
He died regretting that he could not carry out his plans for
the reform of the law and for the protection of commerce; and,
in the opinion of Commines, if God had granted him the grace
of living five or six years more, he would greatly have
benefited his realm. He died commending his soul to the
intercession of the Virgin, and the last words caught from his
lips were: 'Lord, in thee have I trusted; let me never be
confounded.' Nor should this be taken as the expression of
hopeless self-delusion or gratuitous hypocrisy. In the opinion
of Commines, uttered after the king's death, 'he was more
wise, more liberal, and more virtuous in all things than any
contemporary sovereign.' The expressions of Commines were, it
may be said, but the echo of the low moral tone of the age.
This, no doubt, is true; but the fact that the age did not
condemn acts which, taken alone, seem to argue the utmost
depravity, still needs explanation. The matter is the more
worthy of consideration because Louis represents, though in an
exaggerated form, the vices and virtues of a special body of
rulers. He was the incarnation, so to speak, of kingcraft. The
word and the idea it represents have now become out of date,
but for about two centuries--say, roughly, from the middle of
the seventeenth century--the idea of a great king was that of
a monarch who ruled by means of cunning, intrigue, and
disregard of ordinary moral rules. We here come across the
fact which explains both the career and the reputation of
Louis and of others, such as Henry VII. of England, who were
masters of kingcraft. The universal feeling of the time,
shared by subjects no less than by rulers, was that a king was
not bound by the rules of morality, and especially by the
rules of honesty, which bind other men. Until you realize this
fact, nothing is more incomprehensible than the adulation
lavished by men such as Bacon or Casaubon on a ruler such as
James I. ... The real puzzle is to ascertain how this feeling
that kings were above the moral law came into existence. The
facts of history afford the necessary explanation. When the
modern European world was falling into shape the one thing
required for national prosperity was the growth of a power
which might check the disorders of the feudal nobility, and
secure for the mass of the people the blessings of an orderly
government. The only power which, in most cases, could achieve
this end, was the crown. In England the monarchs put an end to
the wars of the nobility. In France the growth of the monarchy
secured not only internal quiet, but protection from external
invasion. In these and in other cases the interest of the
crown and the interest of the people became for a time
identical. ... Acts which would have seemed villainous when
done to promote a purely private interest, became mere devices
of statesmanship when performed in the interest of the public.
The maxims that the king can do no wrong, and that the safety
of the people is the highest law, blended together in the
minds of ambitious rulers. The result was the production of
men like Louis XI."
_A. V. Dicey,
Willert's Louis XI.
(The Nation, December 7, 1876)._
"A careful examination of the reign of Louis the Eleventh has
particularly impressed upon me one fact, that the ends for
which he toiled and sinned throughout his whole life were
attained at last rather by circumstances than by his labours.
The supreme object of all his schemes was to crush that most
formidable of all his foes, Burgundy. And yet had Charles
confined his ambition within reasonable limits, had he
possessed an ordinary share of statecraft, and, above all,
could he have controlled those fiery passions, which drove him
to the verge of madness, he would have won the game quite
easily. Louis lacked one of the essential qualities of
statecraft--patience; and was wholly destitute of that
necessity of ambition--boldness. An irritable restlessness
was one of the salient points of his character. His courtiers
and attendants were ever intriguing to embroil him in war,
'because,' says Comines, 'the nature of the King was such,
that unless he was at war with some foreign prince, he would
certainly find some quarrel or other at home with his
servants, domestics, or officers, for his mind must be always
working.' His mood was ever changing, and he was by turns
confiding, suspicious, avaricious, prodigal, audacious, and
timid. He frequently nullified his most crafty schemes by
impatience for the result. He would sow the seed with the
utmost care, but he could not wait for the fructification. In
this he was false to the practice of those Italian statesmen
who were avowedly his models. It was this irritable
restlessness which brought down upon him the hatred of all
classes, from the noble to the serf; for we find him at one
time cunningly bidding for popularity, and immediately
afterwards destroying all he had gained by some rash and
inconsiderate act. His extreme timidity hampered the execution
of all his plans. He had not even the boldness of the coward
who will fight when all the strength is on his own side.
Constantly at war, during a reign of twenty-two years there
were fought but two battles, Montlehéry and Guingette, both of
which, strange to say, were undecided, and both of which were
fought against his will and counsel. ... He left France larger
by one-fourth than he had inherited it; but out of the five
provinces which he acquired, Provence was bequeathed him,
Roussillon was pawned to him by the usurping King of Navarre,
and Burgundy was won for him by the Swiss. His triumphs were
much more the result of fortune than the efforts of his own
genius."
_Louis the Eleventh
(Temple Bar, volume 46, pages 523-524)._
ALSO IN:
_J. Michelet,
History of France,
book 13._
_P. F. Willert,
The Reign of Louis XI._
_J. F. Kirk,
History of Charles the Bold,
book 1, chapters 4-6._
_P. de Commines,
Memoirs,
book 1._
_E. de Monstrelet,
Chronicles
(Johnes' translation),
book 3, chapters 99-153._
{1183}
FRANCE: A. D. 1467-1477.
The troubles of Louis XI. with Charles the Bold, of Burgundy.
Death of the Duke and Louis' acquisition of Burgundy.
See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1467-1468, to 1477.
FRANCE: A. D. 1483.
The kingdom as left by Louis XI.
Louis XI., who died Aug. 30, A. D. 1483, "had joined to the
crown Berry, the apanage of his brother, Provence, the duchy
of Burgundy, Anjou, Maine, Ponthieu, the counties of Auxerre,
of Mâcon, Charolais, the Free County, Artois, Marche,
Armagnac, Cerdagne, and Roussilon. ... The seven latter
provinces did not yet remain irrevocably united with France:
one part was given anew in apanage, and the other part
restored to foreign sovereigns, and only returned one by one
to the crown of France. ... The principal work of Louis XI.
was the abasement of the second feudality, which had raised
itself on the ruins of the first, and which, without him,
would have replunged France into anarchy. The chiefs of that
feudality were, however, more formidable, since, for the most
part, they belonged to the blood royal of France. Their
powerful houses, which possessed at the accession of that
prince a considerable part of the kingdom, were those of
Orleans, Anjou, Burgundy, and Bourbon. They found themselves
much weakened at his death, and dispossessed in great part, as
we have seen in the history of the reign, by confiscations,
treaties, gifts or heritages. By the side of these houses,
which issued from that of France, there were others whose
power extended still, at this period, in the limits of France
proper, over vast domains. Those of Luxembourg and La Mark
possessed great wealth upon the frontier of the north; that of
Vaudemont had inherited Lorraine and the duchy of Bar; the
house of La Tour was powerful in Auvergne; in the south the
houses of Foix and Albert ruled, the first in the valley of
Ariége, the second between the Adour and the Pyrenees. In the
west the house of Brittany had guarded its independence; but
the moment approached when this beautiful province was to be
forever united with the crown. Lastly, two foreign sovereigns
held possessions in France; the Pope had Avignon and the
county Venaissin; and the Duke of Savoy possessed, between the
Rhone and the Saône, Bugey and Valromey. The time was still
distant when the royal authority would be seen freely
exercised through every territory comprised in the natural
limits of the kingdom. But Louis XI. did much to attain this
aim, and after him no princely or vassal house was powerful
enough to resist the crown by its own forces, and to put the
throne in peril."
_E. de Bonnechose,
History of France,
volume 1, pages 315-318,
and foot-note._
FRANCE: A. D. 1483.
Accession of King Charles VIII.
FRANCE: A. D. 1485-1487.
The League of the Princes.
Charles VIII., son and successor of Louis XI., came to the
throne at the age of thirteen, on the death of his father in
1483. His eldest sister, Anne, married to the Lord of Beaujeu,
made herself practically regent of the kingdom, by sheer
ability and force of character; and ruled during the minority,
pursuing the lines of her father's policy. The princes of the
blood-royal, with the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon at their
head, formed a league against her. They were supported by many
nobles, including Philip de Commines, the Count of Dunois and
the Prince of Orange. They also received aid from the Duke of
Brittany, and from Maximilian of Austria, who now controlled
the Netherlands. Anne's general, La Trémouille, defeated the
league in a decisive battle (A. D. 1487) near St. Aubin du
Cormier, where the Duke of Orleans, the Prince of Orange, and
many nobles and knights were made prisoners. The Duke and the
Prince were sent to Anne, who shut them up in strong places,
while most of their companions were summarily executed.
_E. de Bonnechose,
History of France,
volume 1, book 3, chapter 3._
ALSO IN:
_F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
ch. 26._
FRANCE: A. D. 1491.
Brittany, the last of the great fiefs, united to the crown.
The end of the Feudal System.
See BRITTANY: A. D. 1491.
FRANCE: A. D. 1492-1515.
The reigns of Charles VIII. and Louis XII.
Their Italian Expeditions and Wars.
The effects on France.
Beginning of the Renaissance.
Louis XI. was succeeded by his son, Charles VIII., a boy of
thirteen years, whose elder sister Anne governed the kingdom
ably until he came of age. She dealt firmly with a rebellion
of the nobles and suppressed it. She frustrated an intended
marriage of Anne of Brittany with Maximilian of Austria, which
would have drawn the last of the great semi-independent fiefs
into a dangerous relationship, and she made Charles instead of
his rival the husband of the Breton heiress. When Charles, who
had little intelligence, assumed the government, he was
excited with dreams of making good the pretensions of the
Second House of Anjou to the Kingdom of Naples. Those
pretensions, which had been bequeathed to Louis XI., and which
Charles VIII. had now inherited, had the following origin: "In
the eleventh century, Robert Guiscard, of the Norman family of
Hauteville, at the head of a band of adventurers, took
possession of Sicily and South Italy, then in a state of
complete anarchy. Roger, the son of Robert, founded the
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies under the Pope's suzerainty. In
1189 the Guiscard family became extinct, whereupon the German
Emperor laid claim to the kingdom in right of his wife
Constance, daughter of one of the Norman kings. The Roman
Pontiffs, dreading such powerful neighbours, were adverse to
the arrangement, and in 1254 King Conrad, being succeeded by
his son Conradin, still a minor, furnished a pretext for
bestowing the crown of the Two Sicilies on Charles d' Anjou,
brother of St. Louis. Manfred, guardian of the boy Conradin,
and a natural son of the Emperor Frederick II., raised an army
against Charles d' Anjou, but was defeated, and fell in the
encounter of 1266. Two years later, Prince Conradin was
cruelly beheaded in Naples. Before his death, however, he made
a will, by which he invested Peter III. of Aragon, son-in-law
of Manfred, with full power over the Two Sicilies, exhorting
him to avenge his death [see ITALY: A. D. 1250-1268].
{1184}
This bequest was the origin of the rivalry between the houses
of Aragon and Anjou, a rivalry which developed into open
antagonism when the island of Sicily was given up to Peter of
Aragon and his descendants, while Charles d' Anjou still held
Naples for himself and his heirs [see ITALY: A. D. 1282-1300].
In 1435 Joan II., Queen of Naples, bequeathed her estates to
Alfonso V. of Aragon, surnamed the Magnanimous, to the
exclusion of Louis III. of Anjou. After a long and bloody
struggle, Alfonso succeeded in driving the Anjou dynasty out
of Naples [see ITALY: A. D. 1343-1389, and 1386-1414]. Louis
III. was the last representative of this once-powerful family.
He returned to France, survived his defeat two-and-twenty
years, and by his will left all his rights to the Count of
Maine, his nephew, who, on his death, transferred them to
Louis XI. The wily Louis was not tempted to claim this
worthless legacy. His successor, Charles VIII., less
matter-of-fact, and more romantic, was beguiled into a series
of brilliant, though sterile, expeditions, disastrous to
national interests, neglecting the Flemish provinces, the
liege vassals of France, and thoroughly French at heart.
Charles VIII. put himself at the head of his nobles, made a
triumphal entry into Naples and returned without having gained
an inch of territory [see ITALY: A. D. 1492-1494, and 1494-1496].
De Commines judges the whole affair a mystery; it was,
in fact, one of those dazzling and chivalrous adventures with
which the French delighted to astonish Europe. Louis XII.,
like Charles VIII. [whom he succeeded in 1498], proclaimed his
right to Naples, and also to the Duchy of Milan, inherited
from his grandmother, Valentine de Visconti. These pretended
rights were more than doubtful. The Emperor Wenceslas, on
conferring the duchy on the Viscontis, excluded women from the
inheritance, and both Louis XI. and Charles VIII. recognised
the validity of the Salic law in Milan by concluding an
alliance with the Sforzas. The seventeen years of Louis XII.'s
reign was absorbed in these Italian wars, in which the French
invariably began by victory, and as invariably ended in
defeat. The League of Cambrai, the Battles of Agnadel,
Ravenna, Novara, the Treaties of Grenada and Blois, are the
principal episodes of this unlucky campaign."
_C. Coignet,
Francis the First and His Times,
chapter 3._
See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1499-1500.
"The warriors of France came back from Italy with the wonders
of the South on their lips and her treasures in their hands.
They brought with them books and paintings, they brought with
them armour inlaid with gold and silver, tapestries enriched
with precious metals, embroidered clothing, and even household
furniture. Distributed by many hands in many different places,
each precious thing became a separate centre of initiative
power. The châteaux of the country nobles boasted the
treasures which had fallen to the share of their lords at
Genoa or at Naples; and the great women of the court were
eager to divide the spoil. The contagion spread rapidly. Even
in the most fantastic moment of Gothic inspiration, the French
artist gave evidence that his right hand obeyed a national
instinct for order, for balance, for completeness, and that
his eye preferred, in obedience to a national predilection,
the most refined harmonies of colour. Step by step he had been
feeling his way; now, the broken link of tradition was again
made fast; the workmen of Paris and the workmen of Athens
joined hands, united by the genius of Italy. It must not,
however, be supposed that no intercourse had previously
existed between France and Italy. The roads by Narbonne and
Lyons were worn by many feet. The artists of Tours and
Poitiers, the artists of Paris and Dijon, were alike familiar
with the path to Rome. But an intercourse, hitherto
restricted, was rendered by the wars of Charles VIII. all but
universal. ... Cruelly as the Italians had suffered at the
hands of Charles VIII. they still looked to France for help;
they knew that though they had been injured they had not been
betrayed. But the weak and generous impulses of Charles VIII.
found no place in the councils of his successors. ... The doom
of Italy was pronounced. Substantially the compact was this.
Aided by Borgia, the French were to destroy the free cities of
the north, and in return France was to aid Borgia in breaking
the power of the independent nobles who yet resisted Papal
aggression in the south. In July 1499 the work began. At first
the Italians failed to realise what had taken place. When the
French army entered the Milanese territory the inhabitants
fraternised with the troops, Milan, Genoa, Pavia opened their
gates with joy. But in a few months the course of events, in
the south, aroused a dread anxiety. There, Borgia, under the
protection of the French king, and with the assistance of the
French arms, was triumphantly glutting his brutal rage and
lust, whilst Frenchmen were forced to look on helpless and
indignant. Milan, justly terrified, made an attempt to throw
herself on the mercy of her old ruler. To no purpose. Louis
went back over the Alps, leaving a strong hand and a strong
garrison in Milan, and dragging with him the unfortunate Louis
Sforza, a miserable proof of the final destruction of the most
brilliant court of Upper Italy. ... By the campaign of 1507,
the work, thus begun, was consummated. The ancient spirit of
independence still lingered in Genoa, and Venice was not yet
crushed. There were still fresh laurels to be won. In this
Holy War the Pope and the Emperor willingly joined forces with
France. ... The deathblow was first given to Genoa. She was
forced, Marot tells us, 'la corde au coul, la glaive sous la
gorge, implorer la clémence de ce prince.' Venice was next
traitorously surprised and irreparably injured. Having thus
brilliantly achieved the task of first destroying the lettered
courts, and next the free cities of Italy, Louis died,
bequeathing to François I. the shame of fighting out a
hopeless struggle for supremacy against allies who, no longer
needing help, had combined to drive the French from the field.
There was, indeed, one other duty to be performed. The
shattered remains of Italian civilisation might be collected,
and Paris might receive the men whom Italy could no longer
employ. The French returned to France empty of honour, gorged
with plunder, satiated with rape and rapine, boasting of
cities sacked, and garrisons put to the sword. They had sucked
the lifeblood of Italy, but her death brought new life to
France. The impetus thus acquired by art and letters coincided
with a change in political and social constitutions. The
gradual process of centralisation which had begun with Louis
XI. transformed the life of the whole nation. ... The royal
court began to take proportions hitherto unknown.
{1185}
It gradually became a centre which gathered together the rich,
the learned, and the skilled. Artists, who had previously been
limited in training, isolated in life, and narrowed in
activity by the rigid conservative action of the great guilds
and corporations, were thus brought into immediate contact
with the best culture of their day. For the Humanists did not
form a class apart, and their example incited those with whom
they lived to effort after attainments as varied as their own,
whilst the Court made a rallying point for all, which gave a
sense of countenance and protection even to those who might
never hope to enter it. ... Emancipation of the individual is
the watchword of the sixteenth century; to the artist it
brought relief from the trammels of a caste thraldom, and the
ceaseless efforts of the Humanists find an answer even in the
new forms seen slowly breaking through the sheath of Gothic
art."
_Mrs. Mark Pattison,
The Renaissance of Art in France,
volume 1, chapter 1._
FRANCE: 16th Century.
Renaissance and Reformation.